kenzabug

[kenzabug]

Entry #2

June 10th, 2025

It's a somber Tuesday evening, at least from the couch in my living room. The natural light hardly ever reaches the walls of my apartment. Darkness comes much quicker and doesn't leave you questioning its presence.

I stayed up until 4 a.m. last night, so high that my racing heart gave way for fear into my head that I might not wake up the next morning. If I died in this apartment, no one would discover my body for probably at least a day. My roommate is never here and my friends don't call or text me, so it would have to take my absence at my job to raise any alarms. Even then, I wonder how long it would take to find me.

I wonder if anyone thinks about me beyond just a concept or an idea of something that is fun for them. I want to feel something real.

I just got prescribed 5 mg lexapro today. It is the first prescription I have ever received in my life. I think a lot of people take for granted that they have their own names on little orange bottles that they can just so easily pick up at the pharmacy. I'll probably start taking this for granted soon as well. I think I want to collect the bottles I get. I want to make something of it but I wonder what I'll ever create that is original or profound to me.

I wrote a short story about a giant that continued to grow taller and taller for ever step it took. It was a young adult that was 50 feet tall, living a lonely life, walking its way around the world. I wrote that during the worst heartbreak I've ever felt. The most real thing I had ever felt in my life cut me and gutted me like sport and we were both sad and confused when the kisses couldn't stop the pool of blood spilling around us.

I used to get lost in the hums of guitar strings that callused my fingers. The notes seemed to carry into air and it felt much more than personal; it was integral.

I don't know anything, but I do know a lot. I like to practice knowing and doing more. I want to feel something real. I wonder what exactly I'm searching for. I wonder how it will feel to find it.

I told Joey I'd walk back to the brewery to hang out with him while he works. I think it's good for me to get out of the house. There's not much to do in this life than live every day as it is. That's the greatest gift and heaviest burden I think.

[kenzabug]

Entry #1

June 6th, 2025

It's technically Friday now, but I've stayed up for a few hours after my Thursday evening shift. 

I currently work in a restaurant, for a chef recognized by the Michelin Guide. I am currently an undergraduate student at a nationally recognized 4-year institution. The impact of the 2008 recession serves a defining role in the course of my life. 

That year I was 6 years old, living in Huntington Beach, California. My father worked in the business of loans, or so I have been told. It’s never been clear to me what exactly he does, as he has done many, many things. However, the older I get the more the curtains between reality and the mystical lens of childhood fall. Whatever he did, he lost his job, leading our picturesque nuclear new millenia family of four to move into a 30 foot long camper trailer. 

I won’t bore you with the details just yet. I’ve spent my whole life telling this story. It’s never told just once and there’s never not any questions. It’s nothing so absurd that a documentary would be made of it, but it’s nothing common enough for anyone to not pity me to a certain extent for it. I’ve become prideful of this misfortune due to the sympathy, admiration, and respect I earn almost automatically. It’s nothing I don't deserve though.

I lived in that 30 foot trailer (which quickly upgraded to a 40 foot motorhome) until the age of 17, homeschooled from 2nd to 10th grade. My parents detested public school, vaccines, science that wasn’t “based in faith”, my grandma’s overtly Catholic beliefs, and my sister’s rebellious nature. Both were "bad influences" on my impressionable brother and I. Yet, we witnessed violence in the media we consumed, were left free to run around for miles and miles on our own, had Internet access with no supervision, and offered sips of alcohol just as long as it was our dad allowing us. 

He was a “cool dad”. He told us stories from his youth about all the shit and trouble he got into. He never told us in a way that made us feel like we wanted to follow in his footsteps, yet he still left his audience inspired by his character and charm. He was a goddamn good storyteller. He was ‘honest’. He was real. I believed in him.

My brother and I were practically raised as twins, even though he was a year older than me. Although I am competitive in nature, I wouldn’t be nearly this skilled had it not been for my brother. It was his daily mission to make my life more difficult, challenging me in every aspect of the word.

Our mother raised us both. Our father would argue that he raised us too, but claiming heroism as a ‘father that provided’ means more than throwing cash and passing out drunk from wine at 9 pm. She drove us to the ends of the earth, fed our growling bellies even if it meant she didn’t eat, and knew what each sigh of our breath meant for our moods no matter the day. She was a helicopter mom, but I think now I understand that she just wanted to relive the childhood she never got to have, and will never burden us with the knowledge of its own horror. She is not the most critical thinker by any means, but she has a goddamn iron clad spirit and heart. Nothing can break that woman, as long as her babies are okay. 

My life is untraditional, and I continue to live in that manner. 

As a storyteller, I am fascinated by the endless stories there are to listen to and share, mine being one of them. I refer back to my own constantly. My lived experience is my personal intellectual archive.

I’d like to have fun living and telling my story again. This is only the beginning.

Enjoy